Jus' Bein' Michael

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Is Being Gay A Sin? Part Two - Wrapping Up the "Big Six" Scriptures...

Wrapping Up “The Big Six” Scriptures

So there we have it — a condemnation of homosexual gang rape; two prohibitions of a physical impossibility (and by the way, Lev. 11:6 says very clearly that hares chew their cud!); a scare-tactics announcement of what happens to heterosexual men and women who engage in idolatry; and two condemnations of homosexual rape. Six verses out of 31,174, which in case you're interested is ONLY 0.000192468%!!! The Bible also contains 321 verses that condone slavery (a whopping 1.0297%).

When you are told every day by important people in your world that you are evil and unfit because you are homosexual, you begin to believe that some of it must be true. Noneof it is true! National news, in the past, announced that over 10,000 military personnel have been thrown out of military service based on the "Don't ask. Don't tell" policy of our national government. Take a moment to think about that, and to let it soak in. It’s crazy to think just how many people are affected and abused by the prejudice of others.

ESCAPE FROM ABUSE

What has helped you the most to resist homophobic rejection and build up your own self-acceptance and self-esteem? How have you handled your rejection by family, friends, church, etc.? Don’t you just get tired of them all, sometimes? Or the fact that they love us “anyway”?

We like to pretend that our family or friends actually "mean well" when they quote biblical material to "save us" from being gay and from our sin against God and nature. They do not "mean well"! They are deluded and distracted by traditional abusive religion and they are not thinking for themselves. They need accurate information and truth. Give it to them! Become informed! Not knowing enough accurate information to be confident in yourself that your sexual orientation is right for you is a great disadvantage for you and can eliminate you from the battlefield before you can engage the enemy and go beyond defense into effective contact and conquest. Our battle for acceptance and respect is not lost. "We have just begun to fight!"

Three of the passages: Genesis 19:5; I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10 are incorrectly translated. The other three: Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27are taken out of their original setting of condemning idolatrous religious practices and wrongly used to judge and condemn people of the same sex who love each other. None of these passages refer to people of the same sex who love each other. None originally were aimed at homosexuals. The cultural world of the biblical material is vastly different from ours today, and not one word means exactly today what it meant 2,000 to 3,000 years ago in a different world and in languages that are not used any more as they existed at that time.

We are still in Part Two of my blog series, "Is Being Gay A Sin?" Along with many misinterpretations of the Old Testament and New Testament. Oddly chosen words that normally translated another way, and written 80 years after the dated accounts? There are questions that secular scholars use and ask that I don't. I do love the Bible, and I am trying to answer this from an evangelical fundamentalist perspective, albeit a gay one. As a Christian, it is our duty to prayerfully study and understand what God was trying to communicate to His people, not only in ancient Hebrew times, the more recent Greek and Roman times, but througout ALL time.